5 Prominent NFL Players Headed into a Make-or-Break 2024 Season

The 2024 NFL season will be especially important for several high-profile players. Those who’ve been enduring some rough patches lately must prove they can turn things around to regain their star status.

Whether they’ve been dealing with injuries that have limited their production or just regressed, these players are all at a crossroads. With many of their contracts on the cusp of expiring, 2024 could be their last chance to get back on track and prove themselves to NFL teams.

With that in mind, here are five prominent players heading into a make-or-break 2024 season.

The Baltimore Ravens took Rashod Bateman with the No. 27 overall pick of the 2021 draft to fill a major hole at wide receiver. However, his NFL career has gotten off to a slow start due to injuries that have limited his ability to get on the field and make an impact.

Bateman’s best showing came as a rookie, when he tallied 515 yards on 46 receptions despite missing the first five games of the season while recovering from groin surgery. He was promoted to a full-time starter ahead of his sophomore season, but a foot injury limited him to only six contests that year.

While Bateman returned to play in a career-high 16 games this past season, he no longer had a featured role in Baltimore’s offense. He caught only 32 passes for 367 yards and one touchdown, working well behind breakout rookie Zay Flowers and veteran free-agent addition Odell Beckham Jr.

Bateman has a chance to re-emerge in 2024 after OBJ signed with the Miami Dolphins in free agency. Fourth-round pick Devontez Walker was the only notable pass-catcher whom the Ravens added to their roster this offseason.

If Bateman can’t capitalize by becoming a strong third option behind Flowers and star tight end Mark Andrews at minimum, he’ll be closer to out of the league than signing a big second contract next spring.

The Pittsburgh Steelers seemed to have the league’s next star running back on their hands when Najee Harris landed a Pro Bowl nod as a rookie in 2021. Unfortunately, the concerning efficiency metrics that he displayed that year have continued to plague him.

Harris put up 1,200 yards and seven touchdowns on the ground as a rookie, but it took him a hefty 307 totes to reach those marks. He was even less efficient as a sophomore, rushing 272 times for 1,034 yards and seven scores. While he finally managed to average more than four yards per carry in 2023, Harris barely cleared that mark when he ran for 1,035 yards and eight touchdowns on 255 carries.

The emergence of 2022 undrafted free agent Jaylen Warren has cut into Harris’ workload. Harris went from playing 84 percent of the Steelers’ offensive snaps as a rookie down to 66 percent in 2022. He played a career-low 53 percent of the offensive snap share in 2023, which coincided with Warren picking up most of the pass-catching snaps and a growing portion of the rushing work.

Due to a combination of Warren’s strong play and Harris’ inefficient rushing, the Steelers opted not to pick up the latter’s fifth-year option.

Harris’ free agency value will depend on how he fares this coming season, which should feature Pittsburgh taking a much different offensive approach than it has in recent years. Russell Wilson is now under center, and the Steelers have a new offensive coordinator in Arthur Smith.

Harris is reportedly shedding pounds and fine-tuning his body to have a bounce-back year. We’ll soon see if he can return to Pro Bowl form and make himself a coveted option in the 2025 free-agent market.

The New York Giants’ Daniel Jones era has featured far more lows than highs. While the No. 6 overall pick in the 2019 draft showed promise as a rookie and appeared to be a proper heir to Eli Manning, he’s since fallen relatively flat.

Jones had a breakout campaign in 2022, playing in 16 games for the first—and so far only—time in his career. He finished with personal bests in completion percentage (67.2 percent), passing yardage (3,205), rushing yards (708) and rushing touchdowns (seven) while tallying 15 passing scores against only five interceptions.

That bounce-back campaign, which coincided with the Giants’ first playoff appearance since 2016 and first postseason victory since their 2011 Super Bowl run, earned Jones a hefty four-year, $160 million contract extension. Unfortunately for the G-Men, the quarterback immediately regressed after signing that deal.

Jones lasted only six games last year before suffering a season-ending neck injury. He was playing abysmally prior to going down, posting a 1-5 record in his six starts while connecting on only two touchdown passes and six picks.

Although Jones won’t face direct competition from a high-profile rookie quarterback—the Giants took wideout Malik Nabers with the No. 6 overall pick in this year’s draft instead of a passer—the G-Men could easily move on from him after this season. If they cut or traded him after June 1 next offseason, they’d be left with a dead cap hit of only $11.1 million.

With Nabers as a true No. 1 receiver, Jones should have ample opportunity to return to or even improve upon his 2022 form. But if he fails to bounce back, the Giants won’t be able to justify sticking with him any longer.

The Cleveland Browns were so desperate for a quarterback following a disappointing 2021 campaign that they gave up a slew of valuable draft picks to acquire Deshaun Watson and handed him a historic five-year, $230 million fully guaranteed contract extension.

Cleveland did all of that without Watson playing a meaningful snap since the 2020 season. That appears to have been a massive misstep.

After sitting out over half of the 2022 campaign due to a suspension, Watson looked pedestrian at best during his first six games as Cleveland’s starter. He failed to build on that disappointing showing at the start of last season and lasted only six games before he suffered a season-ending shoulder injury.

Heading into Year 3 of the Watson era, the Browns have gotten only 12 games out of him so far. While he’s a respectable 8-4 as a starter in those contests, he’s completed under 60 percent of his passes for 2,217 yards and 14 touchdowns against nine interceptions.

Those are concerning figures for a signal-caller who finished a 54-game tenure with the Houston Texans having completed 67.8 percent of his throws while racking up nearly 5,000 yards and tallying 33 touchdowns in 2020 alone.

There’s still hope for a turnaround here, but it must come quickly. The Browns can’t afford to waste more time waiting for Watson to return to form.

If he fails to deliver on expectations, the club may have to follow in the Denver Broncos’ footsteps by making a costly decision to part ways with an overpaid and underwhelming Pro Bowl quarterback well before his contract expires.

A few years ago, Chase Young looked poised to become the NFL’s next star pass-rusher.

The No. 2 overall pick in 2020 quickly emerged as a force for the Washington Commanders, racking up 7.5 sacks and four forced fumbles on his way to earning Defensive Rookie of the Year and Pro Bowl honors. However, that has been the high-water mark of Young’s career, and he’s running out of chances to show he can still be that type of impact player.

Young’s trajectory was significantly altered when he suffered a devastating knee injury midway through his sophomore season. He went on to miss 22 games, looking like a shade of his former self upon his return near the tail end of the 2022 campaign.

While Young did start to flash his elite potential again early in 2023—racking up five sacks in the first six games—a midseason trade to the San Francisco 49ers did more harm than good. Despite getting to play alongside some of the league’s most formidable defenders, including former Ohio State teammate and 2022 Defensive Player of the Year Nick Bosa, Young tallied only 2.5 sacks in nine regular-season contests.

A strong market never materialized for Young when he hit free agency this offseason. He settled for a one-year, prove-it deal with the New Orleans Saints worth $13 million, placing him outside the top 25 for average pay at the position.

Young could still go on to have a long, fruitful career. He’s just entering his age-25 season and doesn’t have much tread on his tires after playing only 2,097 defensive snaps across his first 43 NFL games.

If Young can stay healthy and shine while working with another top-tier edge rusher in Cameron Jordan, he should sign a big-money, multi-year deal when he returns to the open market next offseason.